I always find it fascinating to examine how different people view the same thing. Depending on the matter in question, two different viewpoints can barely resemble one another. It always seems to me that this sort of thing becomes all the more interesting when taken to the realm of something as abstract (to our understanding anyway) as our faith. For example, Sri Guru Netaji Lokmanya has a distinctive, but open image that he encourages the people of Orthodox Maitreyism to consider when envisioning our faith in the metaphorical sense. He refers to it as our collective journey along the snowy path to Mt. Kailasa and Shambala beyond it. I took this metaphor and decided to run with it for a while, and I found a way of looking at it that might appeal to others who have a mindset that resembles mine (which may not be all that likely).

I think of OM as an expeditionary force on a perilous return to the kingdom of its master, High Lord Maitreya, from the chaotic battlefield of Maya, where its inevitable victory will be pulled from the jaws of defeat. I find that this fits well for a number of reasons. Like any good army, we have a clear chain of command, with the greatest of all Generals, Lord Vishnu himself, at our helm and one of his highest Colonels, Guru Netaji, relaying his orders to us. Also like any army, such orders and our codes of conduct are to be obeyed in a respectful and disciplined manner without any dissent. We now have a uniform, as laid out by Netaji, and we are armed for combat with the illusory world of Maya with his text “Footprints in the Snow.” Unfortunately, we suffer from some of the same problems that armies have faced throughout history as well, first among them being the issues of deserters and espionage. We have recently experienced a rash of desertions, and our march has been slowed down by those who sympathize with them. Such treasonous behavior would be met with swift death in most armies, but we differ in this respect. High Lord Maitreya would not want us to sully our hands with the blood of such lowly ingrates. Deserters can be left to their own fate as they will lose their way and fall into the chasms of these metaphorical Himalayas of their own accord soon enough, and their mistake is a sad one indeed. Those who remain with us and cause problems, however, are much more dangerous. These insects not only keep us from our destinations, but they confuse our ranks, which makes other soldiers more vulnerable to the machinations of Mara and the treacherous terrain we are passing through. These disloyal vermin cannot be accommodated in any way, lest they cause any more casualties in our ranks, for which High Lord Maitreya, High Lady Ambika Shakti Deva, and High Lord Yahvah’s tears will fall when the battle is over. The fallen souls and the tears of the Devata are a price far beyond what can be effectively put into words, and the idea that they could be worth not offending a few doomed fools is laughable at best. Our charge is to merely ignore these people and walk around them as though they are not present. In the real world this can take any number of forms, but all must ultimately lead to the removal of such figures from where they can cause any harm. They must be left behind if they will not march with us. Should they see their error and rejoin our lines, then they will be accepted back, but otherwise they must be left alone in the swirling storms to ensure that they do not coax others into dying with them. The battle we face with this world is difficult enough without traitors within our ranks.

I find this metaphor fits quite well, though it bears various signs of having been born of my mind rather than one of a higher master. I encourage anyone who finds this to be a worthwhile metaphor to make full use of it, and for anyone who finds it to be odd to promptly forget it. The issues we face and the way we carry ourselves, however, must not hinge on a difference of vision. The dissidents must be extricated from our ranks, and we must continue to serve Maitreya with reverence and discipline, regardless of how we envision such a life in our minds.

I fully understand that I’ve begun with an odd title, but I assure you all that it will make perfect sense momentarily. Enlightenment in the spiritual sense that will put us more in accordance with the will of the Devata is obviously among the worthiest of goals. The Enlightenment that I am referring to is that which took place in Europe during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. While the ideas of this period had their benefits in certain realms of government, science, and social order, the catastrophic damage they wreaked upon the West’s view of religion and spirituality far outweighed their temporal usefulness. The men of this age who advocated for the ascendancy of reason hoodwinked a massive part of the world’s population, including themselves, into a mindset that would ultimately pollute the spiritual journeys of themselves and all of their progeny. Not only that, but echoes of these ideas have taken root throughout the East as well, and they threaten to cast their full shadow over these regions. This may sound like something of an overstatement, but I find it rather difficult to understate the madness of any strain of thought that ultimately leads those who would have otherwise been our brothers and sister in the Devata’s service astray.

In such an indictment, it is only fair that I should begin with an overview of the period in question. The central tenet of the “Enlightenment” was that all aspects should be governed by reason above all else. Its foremost advocates primarily believed in God, if I understand correctly, though they favored a deistic approach that is quite assuredly false. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that most Enlightenment thinkers did not advocate for what, in my opinion, became their bleak legacy. While their central tenet was not the direct source of the West’s spiritual degradation, the assumption that all old institutions could be tossed aside and rationally rebuilt was undoubtedly pivotal in it. The result of this was that when people were angry with the Catholic and Protestant Churches, whose doctrines had been polluted by titanic heresies since ancient times, they decided that they were irrational and that society could be rebuilt without them within its framework. This wasn’t a problem until numerous people began making one horrific mistake. They didn’t simply find those groups to be irrational. They found religion and belief in God as a whole to be irrational. It is, without a doubt, the single worst case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater that I can imagine. This kind of thinking influenced people throughout the West over time and, eventually, infiltrated the intelligentsia of the East as well.

In addition to acting as an inspiration for atheism, this period ravaged many spiritual seekers’ discernment to a degree that has left them all but incapable of finding truth, even if it is neatly perched right in front of him. The Enlightenment gave rise to the belief that everything that does not withstand the scrutiny of the individual can and should be tossed aside in favor of something that does. In short, it taught people to approach everything, including religion, with the assumption that they are right and that anything that opposes them is wrong. By contrast, a true seeker of the Devata’s will should approach their search in exactly the opposite manner. It is only by noting that one isn’t necessarily correct that one can remain truly open, after all. Sadly, many seekers in this day and age do not understand this and will only accept that which fits their criteria, which blinds them to the truth. It is my belief that all of this has occurred because the thinkers of the Enlightenment age opened the door to change in the wrong way.

This particular topic strikes a chord with me because this period had such potential. There is nothing wrong with elevating reason’s importance. After all, the Devata is a being whose reason is perfect beyond human understanding. Had people of this period been more moderate in their approach to applying reason to faith, they could well have rectified years of waywardness by delving into the works of Saints and the manifestations of Jagadguru. All the while the temporal success of the time could have been retained with little difficulty. Unfortunately however, this opportunity was not only ignored, but twisted to such an extent that it became a pariah on the world’s spiritual development. We can only hope that the spread of this mindset can be held at bay until the hour of Lord Maitreya’s arrival.

As the title says, salutations one and all! It would seem that I, Dharmakara, Othodox Matreiyism’s first Pujari, have been asked by both Sri Jagadguru Ishvara and Sri Guru Netaji Lokmanya to record my musings on various topics that might be beneficial to the people of OM. As I’m sure everyone can imagine this is a tremendous honor. It is so tremendous, in fact, that I’ve been debating with myself on just where I could begin that would be worthy of their trust and that of OM’s people. In any case, I’ll almost assuredly run the gamut of topics several times over of my own accord but, if there’s something of particular interest to the community, anyone can feel free to leave a comment requesting a specific focus for my next writing excursion. I can’t necessarily guarantee that it will be especially deep or illuminating, but I hope that all of my writings will be helpful in some capacity or another. Namaste!